Leaders start 158 games at their position. They don’t make 34 starts on the mound, or do they?

“Chris Carpenter is our leader,” said infielder David Freese, the Game 6 World Series hero from 2011. “He’s one of the most vocal guys on our bench. He’s a bulldog. He’s unlike anyone I’ve ever been around. He’s like an animal.”

Freese is asked if he considered how the wild-card winning Cardinals won the play-in game over the Atlanta Braves and now sit a win away from making the Series for a second year. Not an easy feat, for since the wild-card era began in 1995, only three teams have returned to the World Series after winning it the previous year: The 1996 Atlanta Braves, the 1998-2001 New York Yankees (1999-2001, and the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies.

“I’ll be honest,” Freese told reporters after the Cardinals won Game 4 earlier this week. “I don’t think the last World Series has hit me quite yet. If we’re fortunate enough to get back, wow.”

Freese hit a 1-2 pitch for a two-run triple in bottom of the ninth to force extras and in the 11th a walk-off homer forcing Game 7 against the Texas Rangers.

The Cardinals do not lead the Baseball America rankings each year when it comes to the best prospects. Yet, many arrive at Busch and deliver. Such as Freese, who almost quit the game as a minor-leaguer. Allen Craig took over for Albert Pujols. Pete Kozma, their Mike McCoy, fills in for injured Rafael Furcal. Matt Carpenter spelled an injured Carlos Beltan and Lance Lynn moved into Carpenter’s spot in the rotation until the latter finally made his season debut in late September.

“Veterans make you welcome. You come up and someone will put your arm around you, make you welcome,” said Freese, who admitted this year, it felt like “we were being hunted. Last year, we were the hunters.”

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Chris Tunno, of the Cardinals’ crack P.R. staff, tells about a night in the clubhouse when Carpenter and Adam Wainwright called over infielder Matt Carpenter.

As soon as Little Carp shook his head no, Big Carp let out a loud shrill, ear-splitting tweet.

“I was 15 feet away and it scared the heck out of me,” said Tunno.

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Cardinals hitting coach Mike Aldrete played 11 seasons in the majors. He was part of Tim Wallach’s Montreal Expos. He was in the New York Yankees clubhouse with Paul O’Neill and Tino Martinez. He was with Tony Gwynn’s San Diego Padres, Terry Steinbach’s Oakland A’s and ‘Mr. Angel’ Tim Salmon’s Anaheim Angels.

“The only place besides here where the pitcher was the main presence in the clubhouse was Mike Krukow with the Giants,” said Aldrete, a St. Louis coach for five seasons. “There is an interesting dynamic going on: He’s older, he’s been really, really good, he’s had his butt handed to him, he’s been everywhere in between, he’s been hurt and battled back from serious injuries. And Albert is not here any longer.

“Chris Carpenter has the ability to relate to everyone in the clubhouse and where they are in their baseball life.”

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“He’s our leader in the clubhouse, we’re aware of what he’s accomplished, all of what he’s gone through,” said rookie reliever Trevor Rosenthal, who was clocked at 101 mph in Game 3.

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In the final week of the 2002 season, the Jays sat down with Carpenter in trainer Jays Tommy Craig’s office. Carpenter was coming off surgery and would not pitch in 2003. He wanted to stay with the organization for minimum pay plus service time.

General manager J.P. Ricciardi and assistant GM Tim McCleary told Carpenter there was not any guaranteed money out there for an injured free-agent shoulder and that they could not afford him.

The Texas Rangers, the Baltimore Orioles, the Cardinals and, eventually, the Blue Jays made offers.

We wrote, at the time, that it was a bad decision to toss away an arm like that in post-season. Sure enough, Carpenter went 21-5 with a 2.83 ERA in 2005 on his way to winning the Cy Young Award.

We wrote a similar story again the next post-season after he went 15-8 with a 3.09 ERA, prompting McCleary to phone our sports editor, Pat Grier, and ask: “Is he going to write that story every year?”

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Carpenter has made 197 starts with the Cardinals, since leaving the Jays, and Sunday will be his 18th in post-season play.

His voice was heard as the Cardinals scored four in the top of the ninth to eliminate the Washington Nationals 9-7 in the deciding game of the National League division series.

Said Matheny: “He was screaming at everybody like always, but the message was: ‘Believe in yourselves, believe in us. We can do something here, no matter the odds.’

“That’s something somebody can try to sell, but when you believe it, like he believes it, it’s viral.”

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Matheny is into mentoring. He was a teammate of Pat Hentgen with the 2000 Cardinals. Matheny believes Carpenter learned his competitive ways from Hentgen during their Jays days. Now Cardinals pitchers learn from Carpenter.

Matheny sees the family three like this: Hentgen, 43, as the grandfather, his son Carpenter, 37 and Adam Wainwright, 31, the grandson.

“Chris Carpenter is the guy who leads us,” said Wainwright, “he and (catcher) Yadier Molina. When Chris speaks, it reflects to what one of us is going through at a certain time, good or bad.

“He taught me how to compete, how to be a professional.”

If there was any doubt as to the closeness of the Carpenter-Wainright relationship it was there on the front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Wainwright was lifted for a pinch-hitter with after allowing one run in eight innings with an 8-1 lead in Game 4.

One pitcher hugged the other. It was a mentor-pupil hug. It was a father-son hug.

“The similarities are the competitive nature you can’t teach, you can’t fake,” said Matheny of Carpenter and Wainwright. “We’ve seen that in big situations with these guys.

“They share the same traits in that they know what it takes to be successful at this level. It’s about discipline, consistency and mental toughness. It’s innate to them.”

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At Cooperstown this past summer, we talked to Carlton Fisk, the only other first-round draft pick besides Carpenter from New Hampshire. His son was best friends with Carpenter’s older brother.

“I remember little Chris Carpenter tagging along,” Fisk said.

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Carpenter, selected by scouting director Bob Engle and area scout Ted Lekas in the 1993 draft, was not this way in Toronto.

“No, Pat Hentgen led, or at least the pitchers,” Carpenter said. “The older you get things change ... I’ve been with this organization more than 10 years. I’ve been at both stadiums, I’m the only one left (along with Molina) from old Busch. I do get excited, I pat guys on the butt. I yell and encourage.”

Few of the Cardinals sit on the dugout bench. They lean on the railing following Carpenter’s example.

“I played the same time as our coaches — Mark McGwire and Mike Aldrete — played against most of the other coaches with visiting teams. Guys tease me about that.”

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Carpenter tried to pitch through a sore neck and shoulder during the spring. When it wasn’t getting better by mid-July, the team sent him to a specialist, Dr. Gregory Pearl, in Dallas, at which time he was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition in the area between the rib cage and collarbone that caused numbness down his arm to his pitching hand.

In an unusual surgical procedure, Carpenter had one of his right ribs removed to alleviate the pressure on the nerves that run to his right arm.

It was supposed to be a season-ender.

Yet, there he was back on the mound Sept. 21 at Wrigley Field, minus one rib, pitching five innings. He made two more starts before the end of the season, won his only start against Washington (52/3 scoreless) and lost Game 2 to the Giants (four innings, two earned runs).

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Carpenter is no stranger to comebacks. Right elbow inflammation limited him to 24 starts in 1999 and had shoulder surgery in 2002. Despite those setbacks, he has a 95-44 record since 2004, a .683 winning percentage the best in the majors during that stretch.

He has also won the award as comeback player of the year in 2004, again in ’09 and wants to win a third.

First though, there is the matter of the NLCS ... and the Cardinals repeating as World Series champions.